Leadership Decision Making Process

There are a number of psychological traps that leaders can fall into. These psychological traps can be especially dangerous when engaging in decision-making. Before an important decision is made, a prudent leader must evaluate the situations they are confronting. However, in doing this most leaders find that they fall into psychological traps. These traps result in the leader making decisions based on their belief and past experiences without analyzing the information presented and accurately weighing the benefits. Psychological traps can distort a leader’s outlook on a current situation and effect an organization from achieving its objective. While Gen Douglas MacArthur was considered a strong leader, he fell into psychological traps, as noted in the “Korea 1950” case study. These psychological traps affected his intuitive decision-making process.
Military leaders can unconsciously fall into psychological traps which can be dangerous, in that they may not realize how it affects their ability to make sound decisions. While past experiences can help a decision maker to improve intuitive decision making, having alternate perspectives can safeguard against falling into psychological traps. To make good decisions, leaders must engage in analysis and synthesis of data, and use intellect, knowledge, experience and education when making decisions. The Korea 1950 case study, demonstrates how a decision-makers’ understanding is affected by personality, past experience, and cognitive bias.
The anchoring trap, which occurs when a decision maker gives disproportionate weight to the first bit of information received, [footnoteRef:1] allowing this tidbit of data to inform and shape his entire outlook when subsequent data would better help to explain a situation so that a more informed and rational decision could be made. GEN MacArthur relied a great deal on his own past experiences to inform his decision making, resulting in him falling into the anchoring trap. Since he gambled against significant odds in the past and won, he would do the same again in his attack at Yalu River; however, he did not consider the other information that was available. GEN MacArthur surrounded himself with “Yes Men” who only provided confirmation and cognitive bias. He did not examine other factors that would have led to formulating a more cautious decision; nor did he apply lessons learned from past experiences. LTG Walker and MG Smith could have told him otherwise, as they understood that this was a new kind of enemy and a new kind of war[footnoteRef:2] that required a new set of inputs. [1: John Hammond, Ralph Keeney and Howard Raiffa, “The Hidden Traps in Decision Making” Harvard Business Review (1999), https://hbr.org/1998/09/the-hidden-traps-in-decision-making-2] [2: Bob Rielly, “Defeat from Victory: Korea 1950,” Case Study, 5.]

The status-quo trap occurs when one has a bias towards a current situation even though better options exist for organizing or implementing a course of action. This trap can cause a leader to keep an organization from achieving its objectives out of fear or pride. GEN MacArthur fell into the status-quo trap when he made an intuitive decision to appoint MG Almond to command X Corps. He was considered “safe” by GEN MacArthur due to his loyalty to the latter. GEN MacArthur was acting on past experience while the current situation had new challenges that required a specific type of expertise which MG Almond lacked. He did not use available data or alternate perspectives to make an objective decision—instead, GEN MacArthur maintained status quo to feel protected.
There are a number of different psychological traps that leaders can fall into. These psychological traps can be especially dangerous when engaging in decision-making. Leaders should be aware of the different psychological traps that they can fall into in order to make better and informed decisions. Avoiding psychological traps will ensure that a leader makes use of all the information presented to them and they are able to use alternate perspectives when making decisions.

Bibliography
Hammond, John; Ralph Keeney and Howard Raiffa, “The Hidden Traps in Decision
Making” Harvard Business Review (1999), https://hbr.org/1998/09/the-hidden-traps-in-decision-making-2
Rielly, Bob. “Defeat from Victory: Korea 1950,” Case Study.
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